


Remembering Jess: I Don’t Expect You to Understand

by ilostmyshoe



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Asexuality, Drunken Confessions, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-10-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 12:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilostmyshoe/pseuds/ilostmyshoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for Asexuality Awareness Week for the prompt: Romance between an asexual character and a sexual character with no sex because there are other forms of intimacy thank you very much.</p><p> </p><p>“Awww. Poor little Sammy’s virgin ears. I bet we freaked you out so bad that you couldn’t even think about sex until you got to college. Tell the truth man, ‘cause I’ve always wondered: Were you a virgin the first time that you and Jess had sex?”<br/>“Shut up. For your information I’d had sex multiple times before I even met Jess.” He glared at his brother for a moment, but turned away before adding, “Besides, Jess and I never had sex.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remembering Jess: I Don’t Expect You to Understand

It had been a rough hunt and a long night and Sam had just remembered how exhaustion affected his alcohol tolerance. In a word: a lot. Okay, that was two words, but any single word he could think of was going to be much longer and harder to say while wasted, so he was going to stick to his original answer.

The only consolation was that while he was finishing the last of their beers, Dean had been focusing on their supply of hard liquor, so for once Sam’s big brother was almost as out of it as he was.

The older Winchester was just finishing a rather embellished version of one of his favorite sexcapades. Sam tuned in just enough at the end to say the last words in synch with his brother: “And we didn’t even realize her panties ended up on the roof of the Impala until Dad found them the next morning. Man was he pissed.”

“Dude, I _know_.” Sam rolled his eyes. “I was there, remember? And I could hear most of it through those thin apartment walls. It basically scarred me for life.”

“Awww. Poor little Sammy’s virgin ears. I bet we freaked you out so bad that you couldn’t even _think_ about sex until you got to college. Tell the truth man, ‘cause I’ve always wondered: Were you a virgin the first time that you and Jess had sex?”

“Shut up. For your information I’d had sex multiple times before I even _met_ Jess.” He glared at his brother for a moment, but turned away before adding, “Besides, Jess and I never had sex.”

“Wait . . . Sammy-say-what? I must be drunker than I thought, ‘cause I could have sworn you just said that you never had sex with Jessica Moore, your blonde bombshell of a girlfriend. The woman that you were going to _propose_ to. The two of you were _living together_ for Christ’s sake. I know your game is weak, dude, but there’s no way that even you failed to seal that deal.”

“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Sam’s voice lost its whiny-little-brother tone and became deadly serious. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ talk about Jess that way, and don’t spout bullshit about something you’re never going to understand.”

Dean sat up and raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Hey, Sam. I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean anything by it. I swear. But you’ve got to understand my confusion, man. I need something more to go on.”

Sam turned his head to the side, took a slow, deep breath, and carefully let it out. When he began to explain his voice was calm but his eyes were defiant.

“Jess introduced herself to me the first time we met. That wasn’t unusual, she introduced herself to everybody and always took special care to reach out to anyone that she noticed sitting on the edge of a group or by themselves.

“I’d been feeling awkward and out of place all year. My friend Brady dragged me to this party with talk about some girl that I _had_ to meet, but once we got there he basically ditched me to chat up some cheerleader. I ended up standing in the corner trying to stay out of everyone’s way and feeling like I was still taking up valuable wall space.

“Jess came up and just started talking to me. She claimed that we were in the same art history class (true) and that she could predict my favorite movie based on my haircut (false). She then declared that I must be a statistical anomaly and insisted that we try everyone else at the party to get a more representative sample. I was so caught up in her blinding smile and the joyful ridiculousness of it all that I didn’t even notice that I wasn’t nervous until afterwards. I think I fell at least a little bit in love with her that very night.”

“Okay, Sam. I’m trying really hard to be understanding here, but I’m not sure where this is going.”

“I wasn’t either. I mean, I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere. I loved every minute that I spent hanging out with her and she always seemed happy to see me, but like I said, she acted that way with everyone, so I was completely blindsided when she asked me out.

“She was very clear and straight forward about it. She basically said, ‘Sam, I think you’re awesome, and I really love hanging out with you. I’m starting to like you as more than a friend, and if you feel the same way I think we should try a romantic relationship.’ At that point she paused.

"My brain was still trying to catch up, so I just nodded dumbly, but she took that as sufficient acknowledgement and continued: 'I’m a firm believer in openness and honesty, so if we do this then I think you should know upfront that I’m asexual. I’ve been romantically attracted to a couple of different people in the past, I love to cuddle, I enjoy some light kissing, and I have no interest in anything more sexual than that. I’ve been burned in the past by people who didn’t understand my boundaries or assumed that I’d change my mind if I just cared about them enough, so I want you to be clear about this from the start. If you can’t handle it then I get it. No pressure. We can just keep being friends, assuming that you’re still interested in that.’

“I’ll admit that I stared at her like an idiot and couldn’t think of a single thing to say. She gave me hell about it later, because she understandably assumed that I was freaking out about her sexuality, but I was actually just stuck on the idea that this amazing, beautiful woman was romantically interested in _me_. My brain hadn’t even gotten to the part about asexuality yet. Thankfully, Jess was never shy about demanding clarification, so the misunderstanding was cleared up pretty quickly. We started dating, moved in together, and yeah, I would have asked her to marry me if it weren’t for, well, everything else that happened.”

“Okay, Sam. I get that she was gorgeous, smart, funny, and way out of your league. I mean no disrespect–and I should probably just stop before I shove my foot in my mouth again–but I really want to understand, so I’m gonna ask anyway. She was asexual. I get that. But you aren’t–weren’t–aren’t–whatever, right? I mean, sure, sometimes you seem like a monk, but you said you’d had sex before you met her, and I know you’ve had sex at least once or twice since then. So are you saying (and seriously, please don’t hit me for this) that you just felt so lucky to have her that you were willing to give up sex? Or that she was so amazing that just being with her meant that you didn’t care about having sex anymore? How does that even work?”

“No. Well, yes, kind of. It’s hard to explain. And I know that whatever I say is probably going to make no sense to you, since you’re about as far from asexual as it’s possible to get.”

“I’m not sure if that’s an insult or a compliment, but I’m gonna let it slide. Give me a chance, Sam. I’ll try to keep the asshole comments to a minimum.”

“Thanks.” Sam gave a half smile and then sighed. “I enjoy sex a lot, at least when it’s with the right person, but I don’t _need_ sex. Hell, I spent my horniest years crammed into tiny motel rooms with you and Dad. If I _needed_ sex I’d have exploded long before I made it to college. Shockingly, I manage to spend significant amounts of time every day (except the ones spent on 15 hour road trips) being around attractive women without having sex with them.

“I wanted to have sex with Jess. Of course I did. I loved her and I was absolutely sexually attracted to her. But my sexual attraction didn’t trump her boundaries, so we stuck to sharing time and attention and support, hugs and kisses and, yes, cuddling. I loved sleeping alongside her at night and waking up next to her every morning. And sometimes, when I was alone, I jerked off more often than I did when I was twelve and had just discovered what my dick was for.

“Was it always easy? No. Was I always understanding about it? Of course not. I’m related to you, aren’t I? Sometimes we fought about sex, sometimes we fought about other things, and sometimes we fought for no good reason at all. But most of the time we were so fucking happy that I feel like I must be exaggerating when I remember it. I’d give up almost anything to have her back, Dean, to have things exactly the way they were, lack of sex and all. Does that explain things? Does it at least give you a glimpse of what I’m talking about?”

“Yeah, Sammy. Yeah, it does.”


End file.
